Risen 2 - Preview @ GameSpot

While we're on the subject, the hero has a few tricks up his sleeve to turn the tide of combat. He can use his parrot to distract foes, pull off counter parries and normal parries, and even toss dust to stun foes if players choose these abilities when leveling up. We felt that every little bit of help was welcome, if the prequel's absurd difficulty curve was of any indication. Thankfully, Oberlechner said that Risen 2 will be a little easier than the first game, with the first few hours of the game introducing many incentives to power up your character and the hard parts to come in later.
It should also be noted that all of these fights took place in incredibly lush jungles with beautiful waterfall vistas. Furthermore, Oberlerchner said that the PC version need only modest PC requirements and will stick to using DirectX 9.